A self-described “proud Islamophobe” and “pro-white nationalism” influencer is one of the most influential people in the Trump White House — despite not actually working for the administration. And she’s brought a particularly odious form of cancel culture to President Donald Trump’s second term that’s led to well over a dozen White House and federal employees recently fired for wrongthink.
Loomer has referred to herself as Trump’s “loyalty enforcer,” and she has just added a few more “scalps” to her collection.
Laura Loomer, 32, is known as much for her overt racism as her peddling of evidence-free conspiracy theories — such as 9/11 was an “inside job,” the Parkland high school shooting was staged, and Ohio was being overrun by “cannibalistic Haitians” who were “eating people’s pets.” Loomer has been described by many news outlets as a personal friend and confidant of Trump’s, and she’s fond of bragging about the “scalps” she’s collected, referring to the former White House and federal employees she successfully targeted for firing.
James Risen, writing in The Guardian, noted that Loomer’s critics insist “she has just been taking credit for moves that Trump was already planning,” but added that “Trump himself has said he takes her seriously, so it may be more accurate to describe her as Trump’s de facto national security adviser.”
Loomer has also referred to herself as Trump’s “loyalty enforcer,” and she has just added a few more “scalps” to her collection.
The Daily Wire — a right-wing partisan site co-founded by MAGA pundit Ben Shapiro — reported that National Security Agency general counsel April Falcon Doss had previously worked for Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., on the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. The Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak called her a “transparently partisan activist who has written publicly about her opposition to Trump.” As evidence, Rosiak cited Doss’ call “for Trump to be permanently banned from social media for staging an ‘insurrection.’”
Loomer told The New York Times that she “reposted a tweet that exposed her last week and flagged it for the right people.” Doss was fired last week.
Another civil servant recently “Loomer’d” is Jen Easterly, a former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), who had her job offer to serve as the distinguished chair of the Military Academy at West Point’s social sciences department rescinded by Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. Loomer earlier this week called Easterly’s job offer a “vetting crisis” and later boasted that “All Biden holdovers must be removed from the Trump admin.”
Loomer has taken credit for at least a dozen other “scalps” for “disloyalty” — including federal prosecutors, directors and aides on the National Security Council and even Trump’s original surgeon general nominee, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, because of her support for the Covid vaccines that Trump helped bring into existence in his first term.
But one of the most striking Loomer-influenced cancellations is the resignation of Dr. Vinay Prasad from his roles as the Food and Drug Administration’s head of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and chief medical and scientific officer.
Loomer is soliciting snitches via an anonymous tip line.
Prasad — an acolyte of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who made a name for himself during the Covid pandemic by blasting the FDA and other health agencies on social media, podcasts and his blog — was only on the job a little more than two months. But he made his MAHA mark when he overrode the FDA’s vaccine experts’ recommendations on two Covid vaccines, which led directly to the FDA announcing its plan to only recommend Covid shots for people over 65 or with high-risk health conditions.
But Prasad was not spared from MAGA cancel culture, after Loomer dug up some old podcast clips where Prasad was critical of Trump. In a classic case of people supporting the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party being shocked that the leopards subsequently ate their faces, the MAGA-friendly and cancel culture-obsessed Free Press (where Prasad has been a contributing writer) published an editorial decrying Loomer’s “shameful smear campaign against our honorable, decent friend.” Loomer told Politico that she expects “hundreds” more to be purged for disloyalty to the dear leader. And Loomer is soliciting snitches via an anonymous tip line. “I’m happy to take people’s tips about disloyal appointees, disloyal staffers and Biden holdovers,” Loomer said. “And I guess you could say that my tip line has come to serve as a form of therapy for Trump administration officials who want to expose their colleagues who should not be in the positions that they’re in.” We’re a little more than one-eighth of the way through the second Trump administration, and one of its defining features is that it is led by astoundingly unqualified people whose raison d’etat is ruthlessly enforcing ideological orthodoxy and slavish devotion to the president, rather than the country and the Constitution. And whether you previously worked for people Trump doesn’t like, or you told the objective truth about Trump’s attempted self-coup, or even if you previously criticized him before turning MAGA sycophant, your job is not safe from being eliminated at the behest of a person who during the 2024 election made comments about Vice President Kamala Harris that were so unimpeachably racist they even drew rebukes from loyal Trumpists JD Vance and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Trump’s election was widely seen as a rebuke against the excesses of left-wing cancel culture. But the Loomering of the federal government shows we probably haven’t seen the worst of MAGA cancel culture yet.
Anthony L. Fisher is a senior editor and opinion columnist for MS NOW, often covering free speech, civil liberties and extremism. He was previously the senior opinion editor for The Daily Beast and a politics columnist for Business Insider. 
